


now to know it in my memory

by strangesmallbard



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mid-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:22:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29831790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangesmallbard/pseuds/strangesmallbard
Summary: Tomorrow they will close two rifts a mile away, clear out the last of the Red Templar cavorting around Sahrnia's ruins. It will work. They will persist.She's almost half-asleep—or halfway to believing that she is resting—when she hears it."Friggin' Andraste's hairytits."
Relationships: Cassandra Pentaghast & Sera, Cassandra Pentaghast/Sera
Kudos: 5





	now to know it in my memory

According to Anthony, Cassandra slept like the dead. It was their own private joke, those many mornings Cassandra woke up slumped over his shoulders like a mage's cowl, already halfway through their morning walk around the estate grounds. _The corpses of the Necropolis might wake up sooner than you, little sister._ It is strange to think of herself in this way—so small and moveable, unaware of the world passing by her vessel as a river rushes over a pebble. It is even more strange to think of Anthony at all. In all her years with the Seekers, she only permitted such reflection on the anniversary of his passing. Two hours at a Chantry, sword outstretched in benediction with her palms pressed on the pommel until grace subsided any urge to weep. She may have learned to run on the bones of her ancestors, but would not abide the rot making its roosting nest in her mind.

But that, of course, was then. Before a sullied Magister ripped a hole in the sky and the Maker sent Nalwren Lavellan instead of an answer. Before now, in Emprise du Lion, where the people of Sahrnia sit close with hollow eyes, unsure who will protect them come morning. How Cassandra cannot make the promise that it will be her. _The rot is here,_ she wants to say to their stone-set faces. _It will be here when we leave. It is in your bedrolls and it is the persistent chill howling by your temples. I am sorry,_ she would add, if such platitudes would actually help.

After a third night of tossing and turning in her freezing bedroll, Cassandra attempts to remember the last time she slept deeply at all. If nothing else, she hopes a regimented thought process will ease her body to rest like a training routine—and, perhaps, send Anthony's memory back to the Maker's side, where she knows it will stay safe. Emprise du Lion, in this state, is no place for a grief snare in one's stomach. (It is still there in her mind, after all, no matter what she abides: a snarly, determined thing begging for attention. Most days she can only muster the courage to ignore it.)

Tomorrow they will close two rifts a mile away, clear out the last of the Red Templars cavorting around Sahrnia's ruins. It will work. They will persist.

She's almost half-asleep—or halfway to believing that she is resting—when she hears it.

"Friggin' Andraste's hairy _tits."_

Stomp on the ground. A low-throated grumble, then another. Cassandra rolls over and stuffs her last two clean tunics over her ears. Some time passes just so, with the only noise outside that of light, forgivable footfalls and the whistling, gentle snowfall.

Until: a harsh noise. Akin to a piece of flint striking the ground.

And: _"Balls!"_

"Maker preserve me," Cassandra mutters as she stumbles into breeches, grabs her sword lying like a bed partner beside her, "Maker light the way and prevent my murdering one of your blessed children."

But what lies outside their tent is not a Red Templar, eyes bloodshot if they remain at all, that shock of red in such teeth-rattling whiteness. No shambling corpses either, for that matter. It is only Sera besuited in the same bundle of furs she sleeps in, kneeling on the frozen ground by the fire pit with a gloved hand clasped around the neck of a flask— _Only Sera,_ indeed. It is a small hope that the flask contains whiskey and not an explosive.

Cassandra lowers her sword. Battle-restlessness aches in her bones and warms her neck, even as the sour wind begins to freeze the fluid in her nose. When she speaks, her voice is nasally. "What could you possibly be doing at this hour?"

Sera jerks up at her approach, stumbles into a defensive stance. "G'morning, Seeker!" Her cheery tone is very cheery. "Would've thought that fancy Seeker school had some rule about sneaking up on people. Andraste'd just plant her feet and say, Here I am! Exalt me!"

"I must have missed that lesson," Cassandra drawls. Her jaw chatters. "And that was not an answer."

"Well, tough. I don't have to give you one."

"When it concerns the Inquisition, I must—"

"It really doesn't," Sera snaps. "Promise."

Cassandra wishes she thought to bring her veilfire lantern; the early morning light is a solid wall of violet-blue that casts every shape in shadow, even Sera standing only a few feet away. From her crossed arms and hunched shoulders Cassandra can picture the scowl affixed on her face, but cannot picture anything else that might be more pertinent to the situation. Sera scowls a lot, after all, particularly when frustrated. So does Cassandra, and discerning her own reasons for scowling takes time and, perhaps most of all, _patience._

(The Inquisitor has the patience. If she were someone who prays for petty reasons, she might pray that Nalwren wakes up right now. Nalwren would carefully remove this moment from Cassandra and let her sleep so she may be useful in the morning, instead of—)

"Regardless. You ought to come back inside, Sera. You're no use to the Inquisition as an icicle."

"Ri-ght," Sera choruses. She scuffs the ground with a boot. "Seriously, all's good. Go back to bed! Pretend this is a dream. Shite dream, though. No one's naked."

Cassandra bites back a host of unhelpful comments. She should go back to bed. She should let Sera pretend again that all is well—as if Sera has always been fine, never expressed an acute fear of magic or asked Cassandra if she was _real, like really real again for real_ after the events of Adamant and refused to elaborate on what that meant, refused Cassandra's stumbling attempt at providing a listening ear. It would be best. The morning will come soon.

It would be best.

(Anthony—he had patience too.)

"I do not wish to leave you with no guard," she says instead. She curses her words the instant they leave her mouth, hearing how they drip with an ire she only feels for herself at this moment. She presses forward as though she were still holding a shield. "Your," she waves a hand, "whatever that is, it's no match for an entire squadron of Behemoths."

Entire seconds pass in silence, only made stark when one considers Sera's propensity to chatter. Cassandra feels her own shoulders tense, the skin along her tendons raise in gooseflesh that is nothing to do with the temperature. It is the distinct sensation of being watched. It usually does not come about when she knows exactly who is doing the watching.

"Look. It's my—it's my business, alright?" Sera presses forward into Cassandra's personal space with a rogue's odd grace. Close enough, now, to make out her expression rendered in blue: a snarl at her lips, a gleam in her eyes. It is at once disconcerting and a relief. " _You_ wouldn't get it and—you know, I don't need another speech by Lady Josie when we get back about how I'm mucking everything up, so. Piss off." There's a pause. Her breath is warm. "Please."

This _Please_ both plants Cassandra directly into frozen ground and threatens to uproot her. It sounds unnatural in Sera's voice, on Sera's face, every part a decibel too soft and too quiet. She should fetch the Inquisitor now, who would at least know what to say. She should fetch Nalwren, who now takes all her meals alone in her tent when she once accepted Sera's needling, laughed at Dorian's jokes. Accepted Cassandra too—still listened when Cassandra could speak about Anthony no further. The poem left on her pillow, the blueberry tart on the forge's staircase.

But that, of course, was then.

 _Maker preserve Sera,_ Cassandra thinks. She forms the words under her tongue, so they are real. _Lessen her pain, so that she may know a peaceful rest tonight and all others._

She lifts her sword where it had been languishing by her side. She steps away. "I'll light the lantern so when you return it will not be so—"

"Cold, yeah. Got it."

**Author's Note:**

> Cassandra and Sera's party banter is so interesting! They annoy each other to death, but there is this underlying curiosity and burgeoning respect as well. I would play a whole DLC of them getting into shenanigans around Thedas lmao.
> 
> Title is from "Holoscene" by Bon Iver.


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